THE House of Representatives on Tuesday referred to the justice committee the impeachment case filed against President Rodrigo Duterte by Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, officials said Tuesday.
House Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas and Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, chairman of the House committee on justice, said the impeachment process would begin next week.
“By next week, Monday or Tuesday, we will start our hearing to determine [the] sufficiency and form and substance [of the complaint],” Umali said.
The deliberations on the impeachment case has yet to begin, but Umali predicted that the complaint would be dismissed.
“Going by [the] pronouncements in particular of [the] LP, and the Super majority [against the impeachment complaint against the President], I believe this will be dismissed outright,” Umali said.
Alejano, a former Marine captain and a fellow former rebel soldier of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, accuses Duterte of betraying the public trust, bribery, multiple murder and crimes against humanity “when he adopted a state policy of inducing policemen, other law enforcement authorities and vigilante groups into the extrajudicial killings of more than 8,000 persons who were merely suspected of being drug offenders.”
He claims that Duterte organized and maintained liquidation squads “under the guise of ‘Anti-Crime Task Forces,’ special police units like Davao’s Heinous Crimes Unit and/or vigilante groups like the dreaded Davao Death Squad and/or providing funds to the said groups.”
The same charges were leveled against Duterte for the Davao Death Squads’ activities that allegedly led to the execution in Davao City of more than 1,400 people suspected to be drug pushers and addicts during his terms as mayor, vice mayor and congressman of the city.
Alejano says he cannot allow the people “to just accept that murder is legal in this country.”
